


And He Did Come Home

by shitshitshit



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, aliens n stuff. kinda. sorta, some violent content but mostly ok, sorry y'all, this is so self-indulgent its not even funny
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-28 09:57:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13269036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shitshitshit/pseuds/shitshitshit
Summary: “In layman’s terms, we’re fucked.”Tooru lifts his head to meet Hajime’s eyes, seeking confirmation, which he receives in the form of a curt nod. The temperature of the room is stifling and it’s so hot; god, it’s so hot. They’re all drenched in sweat but he’s well-past the point of caring enough to wipe his forehead before it drips over his brow and into his eyes. He gives his comrades a cursory glance, taking note of some minor injuries, some less minor than others, like the gash just above Kyotani’s collarbone that hasn’t stopped bleeding for twenty minutes. They might have to leave him here, Tooru realizes. The two fresh meat soldiers have been breathing heavily since they reached the deserted supply point and one of them seems to be borderline hyperventilating as the clock ticks on.





	And He Did Come Home

“In layman’s terms, we’re fucked.”

Tooru lifts his head to meet Hajime’s eyes, seeking confirmation, which he receives in the form of a curt nod. The temperature of the room is stifling and it’s so hot; god, it’s so hot. They’re all drenched in sweat but he’s well-past the point of caring enough to wipe his forehead before it drips over his brow and into his eyes. He gives his comrades a cursory glance, taking note of some minor injuries, some less minor than others, like the gash just above Kyotani’s collarbone that hasn’t stopped bleeding for twenty minutes. They might have to leave him here, Tooru realizes. The two fresh meat soldiers have been breathing heavily since they reached the deserted supply point and one of them seems to be borderline hyperventilating as the clock ticks on.

“Lieutenant, what now?” Hajime prompts, adjusting the blade in his holster unconsciously. 

Ah yes, Tooru, what now. He knows that the longer he hesitates to answer this question, the more panicked his unit will become but his silence is completely unintentional this time.  _ Lieutenant, what now?  _ He doesn’t fucking know and it’s terrifying. This is what he should be good at, what he’s always been good at. Quick action, grace under fire: this is Tooru’s comfort zone. Maybe, he thinks, he’s gone soft and all this loss really is getting to him. Yes, that’s it. Maybe he just needs to remember that this is the way it’s always been and he had to know that when he enlisted on a rainy Thursday morning in November, in the hopes that if he learned how to throw a punch, he could drive away the guilt that’d taken up a permanent residency in the pit of his stomach.

It’s been eight years. He and the guilt have somewhat of a symbiotic relationship these days and he’s the best at hand-to-hand combat in the compound. 

He claps his hands together once, slicing through the remote silence of the room and startling several of his comrades. “Why the long face, Iwa-chan? Calling me ‘lieutenant’ so seriously all of a sudden… You’re making me blush.”

Tooru is half expecting it when Hajime lunges forward, catching him by the collar of his uniform and pulling him in forcefully so that they’re nose-to-nose. “Stop fucking stalling. I don’t have time for your bullshit when we have lost all contact with base and there are more people bleeding than not.” Hajime leans in even closer and, in a much quieter voice, “Oikawa, get it together. We need you.”

“It’ll be okay, Iwa-chan. I can fix this,” Tooru assures him but those words aren’t even close to the truth and Tooru thinks this might be the first time he’s had to keep a stranglehold on what’s left of his confidence to even manage this feeble of a lie.

Feeble as it may be, it seems to assuage his comrades and Tooru can see some of them visibly straighten at the appearance of his determined smirk. At least they seem to have some faith in him. If they believe he can get them out of here, then perhaps he really can. 

“Alright,” he says finally, silencing those few soldiers with their backs smashed up against the wall who’ve begun to whisper amongst themselves. “From this minute onward, we are abandoning our previous mission in favor of rescuing ourselves. Is that clear?” 

He gets a few nods and hums of understanding. 

“I will take the fall if the colonel decides punishment is in order. That’s provided we make it. How bad off is Kyotani?” 

Hanamaki, a tall soldier with a constantly inexpressive face, moves the towel he’s been holding against the wound to check on its status. “Not as bad as it was, sir. Looks like it might be clotting some.”

Tooru crosses the room to where Kyotani is slumped on the floor, Hanamaki hovering somewhat protectively above him, bloody rag still in hand. He snaps his fingers in front of Kyotani’s face once, twice, three times. “Hey, anybody home?” 

The boy groans and Tooru can feel some of the weight that had gathered on his shoulders begin to disperse. 

“Think you can walk?” Tooru asks, taking Kyotani’s hand. 

“I…. think so,” he answers after a moment, eyes fluttering. He’s lost a lot of blood, Tooru can tell. The entire front of his uniform is stained and the fabric near the cut is so dark it’s almost black. His breathing is shallow and weak, like his lungs are shrinking with each inhale. Tooru can’t tell if the sheen of his skin is from the humidity or the onset of shock but he’s not ready to find out. He slides two fingers across Kyotani’s throat and into the groove under his jaw, wincing at the rapid beat he feels. Definitely not good. 

“Help me get him up,” Tooru orders calmly, sliding an arm around Kyotani’s back. 

“Yes, sir.” Hanamaki takes hold on the other side and the two of them manage to bring Kyotani to a standing position. 

“Matsukawa, take my place.” Without so much as a nod, the soldier slips in right where Tooru had been, adjusting Kyotani against his hip and giving Hanamaki a determined look.

“When we hit the street, we head west and everyone follows me. Understand?” Tooru looks around to see most of his platoon nodding. “No more formations, no more strategies. Everyone gets out of city limits alive.” He looks up at Hajime for a moment before plastering a sickeningly sweet smile on his face and adding, “ready?”

Hajime wrinkles his nose at the at the appearance of Tooru’s signature doe-eyed expression, what with it having seemingly manifested out of nowhere. “Cut it out with the face, dipshit. Let’s just get moving… lieutenant.” Hajime lets his scowl soften into the tiniest of smiles but it’s gone so fast that Tooru can hardly believe it was even there in the first place. 

“Aye, aye!” Tooru replies, coupling his near-comic enthusiasm with an improper salute and dodging the half-hearted smack from Hajime with enviable agility. “Pack up, we leave in five.” 

 

The enclosed space of the supply point had offered a variety of noises; a heater that vibrated with force enough to shake the entire building, fluorescent bulbs that flickered in and out of existence with an odd sort of buzzing, a chorus of their breaths and whispers, the dripping of blood from open wounds onto tile flooring. Now, as the group makes their first steps out into the street, the noise is swallowed up like a vacuum and all that’s left behind is deafening silence.

Tooru can admit he’s scared, just not out loud.  

He swivels his head from side-to-side with each step they take, doing his best to account for any sudden changes in the environment, a falling leaf, the flickering lights of neon signs that line the storefronts around them. Tooru’s come to understand that the more you perceive all movement as potential danger, the closer you are to survival. And that’s what he’s best at, isn’t it? Surviving, that is. 

Tooru puts his hand up suddenly, signaling for the party to stop and get low. A crackling noise has one of the newbie soldiers behind him sucking in a breath. The crackling turns into the clear and easily recognizable sound of heavy footsteps on asphalt and Tooru can feel his heartbeat jump into his throat. 

He startles slightly at Hajime’s voice in his ear, “fuck this fog, I can’t see shit.” 

Tooru nods his head in agreement and gestures for the group to close in around him. Scattering in low visibility is never a good idea. They wait as the footsteps draw near, Tooru choosing instead to focus on the panting of his comrades. Each breath reminds him that they’re still alive and although odds are almost always stacked against them, he’s managed to pull them out before and he can do it again.  _ Will do it again _ , he corrects himself.

Surprisingly Kageyama is the first to spot the figure in the mist. “Look-” he starts before Hajime elbows him roughly. 

“Shut up, kid, are you trying to kill us?” Hajime meets Tooru’s worried gaze before turning his eyes back to the shadow. “It’s alone. What do you wanna do?” he whispers. 

“We might be able to take it,” Tooru replies, might being the key word. They’re low on everything; ammo, morale, warm bodies with any fighting sense; but Tooru places one hand on his holster regardless. He turns to Hajime, displaying determined eyes set under a deeply furrowed brow, “keep them together and get them out safe. I trust you.”

“What… What are you doing? Oikawa!” Hajime reaches for Tooru’s pack but his fingertips fall just shy of the strap and he’s left alone, fingers curled around nothing but the fog and his own fear. The soldiers behind him watch on as Tooru takes off toward the shadow in the mist. 

 

-

  
  


Tooru wakes to a throbbing pain in his head, cracking his eyes open and straining them against the sunlight that streams in through a window in an unfamiliar room. He bolts upright, immediately overcome with nausea and an increasing sense of panic over his whereabouts. 

He’s laying on a bed in what appears to be an average young adult’s bedroom. There are posters on the walls of popular bands and clothes strewn about the floor. Tooru almost laughs at the contrast between his own armored bodysuit and the patterned bedsheets and stuffed animals tucked into the corner of the bed nearest the wall. 

It’s been so long since he’s stepped foot into a civilian residence that he doesn’t know what to do with himself. He can’t remember how he got here for the life of him but he doesn’t have to wait long before the memories just prior to his blackout come flooding back with a vengeance. The pain in his head worsens when he realizes he’d essentially abandoned his soldiers. Patting at the place on his arm where his radio should be, he really does let out a laugh. Figures he’d lose the only source of communication with Hajime. If God is real, Tooru thinks this is one elaborate scheme of a teaching moment. 

There is a soft knock at the door.

Tooru doesn’t answer, not even when the knocking becomes more insistent. He finds himself curling towards the wall instinctually when the door opens, fear quickly overriding confusion.   

“Oh, hey, you’re finally up.” The voice is steady and warm. Tooru opens the eyes he can’t remember closing to see a tall figure leaning against the doorframe. His hair is pitch black, wild and shaggy with a tangle of side-swept fringe that nearly conceals one eye entirely. His expression is neutral but Tooru feels uneasy the moment they lock eyes. The man’s gaze is almost challenging, doing its best to poke holes in the hardened mask that Tooru’s worked so hard to build up all these years. “Sorry about your head.”

Head…? Tooru brings a hand up to his still-aching skull and cringes at the feel of dried blood in his hair, crusted around a wound he’s not ready to inspect yet. And that’s when the pieces fall into place. Oh. 

“Y-you were the one from back there… The fog. You? No way.” He tries to talk himself out of the obvious truth. 

“Yes way. You hungry?” The stranger lifts his visible eyebrow. 

Tooru opens and closes his mouth like a goldfish gasping for its final breath on a bustling festival street. “I guess.” 

“Alright. Get changed out of your little Power Ranger get-up and I’ll make something. Hope you’re not a vegetarian.” Stranger tosses a bundle, presumably clothing, at Tooru and lets out an amused huff when it hits him square in the face. 

Tooru is left alone, blinking, totally and utterly dazed and confused, when it hits him that this interaction is far too normal for the situation. He should’ve charged the stranger when he had the chance, pinned him and questioned him, but instead he acted like flustered college girl who’s never experienced a morning-after. 

Something irks him. There’s a strange part of him pushing towards trust and dependence, the part he thought he’d squashed years back, even before he’d enlisted. This Oikawa Tooru doesn’t exist anymore, the one that needs people, the one that accepts his shortcomings, but it’s this Tooru that wins out when, grumbling, he begins to undress.  

Suddenly, without thinking, he calls out the door, “I don’t look like a Power Ranger, you ass!”

A laugh echoes back and Tooru has to fight the smile that follows.  

Making his way out to the kitchen, Tooru takes inventory. One bathroom, too small but clean enough. Bare walls in almost every other room save for a few snapshots of the stranger with an arm slung around the shoulders of some serious-faced kid that Tooru finds sitting on an end table in the living room. Normal, normal, normal. So normal that this must be a dream and he’ll wake up bound to a gurney in some hospital with Hajime slumped over in the chair next to him, drooling all over his infantry uniform. 

For now, he’ll roll with the punches. 

A pleasant sizzling greets him when he finally wanders into the kitchen. The stranger runs a hand through his hair and turns around, leaning back against the counter where it looks like he’d been preparing some kind of omelette. “Took ya long enough. You have some real speed when you fight but you took twenty damn minutes to make it five feet through my apartment.” 

He keeps acknowledging their fight, the one that Tooru still has no memory of, and it’s intriguing. It’s like he’s not ashamed to have seriously injured and kidnapped someone. “What’s your name?” Tooru asks. 

“Kuroo. Kuroo Tetsu- ah, just Kuroo. And you’re Oikawa Tooru, First Lieutenant and commanding officer of platoon 1080.” 

“How….?”

“Not that hard to snoop when you’re unconscious, I guess. Don’t make that face, it’s not like I performed a full body cavity search, Jesus.” Kuroo turns to the stove to pour a bowl of what appears to be egg whites into a skillet before leaning over a cutting board on the opposite counter. Tooru awkwardly hovers a little past the doorframe, waiting either for instructions or a slap to the face so that he might stop with this playing house and figure out what’s going on. “I sure hope they teach you soldiers how to do more than stare.” 

That jolts Tooru out of his daze and his expression sours. “They teach us plenty, probably just enough to know that you’re burning that omelette.” 

“Shit!” Kuroo rushes to flip over the now blackened egg. “Ya couldn’t have warned me a few minutes ago?” 

“I was too busy staring impolitely. My deepest apologies,” Tooru says. 

Kuroo’s expression darkens for a moment before he grins. “I knew you’d be good.”

“The hell’s that supposed to mean?” Tooru asks, voice raising. 

“Just that you had a good look in your eyes when you rushed me. I liked it.” 

“I’m not sure if I should be flattered that my kidnapper is complimenting me.”

“Sit down,” Kuroo points to the chair that’s already been pulled out at the breakfast nook. “I saved your life, you know.” 

Tooru laughs. “Oh you did, huh? Was I a good damsel in distress?” 

Kuroo sets down a plate filled with various fruits and a somewhat singed omelette. “Terrible, actually. You didn’t believe that I didn’t want to hurt you, I’m guessing you were dead set on a fight as soon as you broke away from your buddies. You also wouldn’t shut the hell up and that’s where this,” he pauses to trace a finger down the back of Tooru’s scalp, stopping just before he reaches the gash, “came from.” 

Tooru hides a shiver when Kuroo pulls away, confused as to why he hadn’t snapped his arm in two for daring to touch him. He’s even more confused about the goosebumps that followed the tiniest of touches but there are other questions that need answers first. “Who were we running from, then?”

Taking a seat across from him, Kuroo plays with his fork for a moment before answering. “My kind.”

Tooru suddenly feels sick to his stomach and he knows he’s letting the silence drag on for too long but he needs a minute to make some sense of this, goddammit. He says quietly, more to himself than Kuroo, “I’ll wake up soon. Hajime. Hospitals. It’s fine.” 

Kuroo snaps his fingers in front of Tooru’s face and waves his hand right in front of Tooru’s nose. “Earth to Lieutenant. You’re not asleep. I’m real and you’d better eat that because I’ll kick your ass again if you don’t. My skills in the kitchen are reserved for my mother and well, you, I guess.”

Tooru scowls. “Really? You should consider sharing your gift more often because the char on this is just perfection.” 

Kuroo chokes on the strawberry half he’d just swallowed and grins but says nothing else. The two eat the rest of their mediocre breakfast in relative silence, save for the few times Kuroo asks if he wants anything else. It’s weirding Tooru out that he’s being treated like a childhood friend turned houseguest rather than a wayward soldier with a head wound and a chip on his shoulder. 

“You said… earlier. Your kind. What do you mean?” Tooru asks as Kuroo clears the table, frowning when he doesn’t get an immediate response and instead has to listen to Kuroo piling their dishes into the sink. 

He’s drumming his fingers on the table, the beat to a song with words long forgotten, when Kuroo joins him, smile faded and eyes set. Kuroo holds out his arm, dangling his hand limply in the air, and Tooru watches as the flesh around Kuroo’s fingers begins to morph. He can’t stifle his gasp when his fingernails meld with the skin, blackening and sharpening, reaching out for Tooru like great long claws. The deep stain of the claws tints the now-mottled skin of Kuroo’s arm, like he’s gone and dipped his arm into an inkwell. 

The veins beneath the skin glow and pulse, rippling in contrast with the darkness of his arm as Kuroo begins to retract the claws. Tooru’s heartbeat is loud and steady in his ears when he says, “wait. I’ve never seen one up close before.”

He inches forward, trembling hand outstretched. Kuroo waits patiently, flexing the tendons in his arm, amusement returning to his face. 

When skin meets scale, Tooru lets his mouth fall open in awe, amazed at the feel of it. He isn’t quite sure what he was expecting, but it certainly isn’t this. He thinks back to when he and Hajime were boys, remembers chasing after fireflies in his mother’s garden. Hajime had caught one and kept it captive in his hands, toddling over to Tooru like this was the single proudest moment of his life. The two had hovered over Hajime’s curled fingers as he released his grip, smiles slipping at the sight. The firefly was mashed into Hajime’s palm, wing twitching with the breeze; its glowing backside spread all over Hajime’s skin. Tooru remembers crying and being angry with Hajime, pushing him into the trunk of their favorite beech tree. That summer is his favorite to remember because it was the summer before them.  

Tooru misses a lot of his life before the arrival of the outsiders. He misses the ocean, thinks of when summer was synonymous with freedom. Growing up in a tiny coastal town promised long days full of sandcastles and playing tag with the tide. They’d taken to the small pools that formed on the rocky, southernmost point of the beach, poking at anemones with sticks and chasing crabs that were always too quick for the clumsy ten year old in cut-offs and a grin bright as the sun. That was then, when every day was the top of the world.  

Tooru doesn’t think he’ll ever know why it is that these seemingly meaningless pieces of his childhood are the freshest and most vivid parts of his memory. He’d like to think it’s because he’s a nostalgic soul or something equally poetic but it’s probably just because he refuses to move forward, like he’s a record that scratched itself so badly it starts to skip after the first song. 

Since the arrival life no longer feels like it moves in chronological order and maybe it never did. There is before and there is after, no in between. Memories jumble together and he finds it hard to recall if it was last week he lost another soldier, or was it last year? Dinners eaten by the light of a dim lantern in some basement in Tokyo blend together and he might even have to think long and hard if you asked him how old he is. It’s almost like a life that should be marked by two bookends, birth and death, had those bookends torn away and someone shoved a marker right smack in the middle. With nothing to hold them on the shelf, those books are sure to tip over and spill their pages all over the floor, until all that’s left is that single end that someone thought might look nice in the middle. Tooru’s worried that his insides are shrinking, that someday he might just be the invasion. Or, worse yet, that maybe he already is. 

“Hey, you alright?” Kuroo’s voice startles him out of whatever far-off dreamland he’d traveled to. 

“Yeah, I’m-” Tooru looks down to see Kuroo’s clawed hand curled around his shoulder, squeezing in concern. Something about the image snatches the breath from his chest, feeling more like a punch to the gut than a comforting touch.  _ He is one of them _ . Tooru recoils from under his inky grasp, not even the slightest bit troubled at Kuroo’s returning grimace. “Get away from me.”

“What?” 

Tooru jumps up from his seat and takes the chair out from under the table to use as a battering ram, making a show of thrusting it aggressively towards Kuroo who does his best to dodge the chair legs. “Get the fuck away from me!” 

“Stop! Oikawa, fucking stop!” Kuroo reaches for the chair, still carefully moving just out of reach every time Tooru charges forward.

He knows this is crazy, not like him. He can feel tears on his cheeks and he’s ashamed to be breaking down in front of a stranger, so fragile and raw all of a sudden. Then again, maybe this wound has been there all along, just below the surface, waiting for someone to rub salt in it. Tooru drops the chair and collapses to his knees, face in his hands.  _ Wake up, please let me wake up _ . 

His quiet sniffling drowns out the sound of Kuroo fumbling around with something on the stove and when Kuroo returns he refuses to lift his head until a finger under his chin forces their eyes to meet. “I made hot cocoa,” is all Kuroo says before standing up and gesturing towards the counter. 

Tooru lets himself wallow for another minute or so before pulling himself up on shaky legs. He’s so embarrassed that he stands on the other side of the room, studying his feet like they’re a new discovery. 

“It has marshmallows,” Kuroo offers softly, pushing a mug across the countertop. 

Tooru darts across the room and snatches it up, closing his eyes at the rich taste. It’s good and he hates that it’s good because the less foreign Kuroo is, the more mortified he becomes. His bedroom is filled with posters of his favorite bands and his covers are littered with stuffed animals, he makes fantastic hot chocolate and tells jokes like they’re already friends. These things make it hard to classify him as ‘other’, hard to use him as the punching bag Tooru’s been searching for so desperately.  

“Th-thanks,” Tooru says, frowning at the hiccup in his voice. 

“No problem.”

For a few minutes there’s no sound but the tick of the wall clock.

“You… wanna talk about it?” Kuroo asks. 

“What is there to say?” Tooru rolls his eyes. 

“Probably more than we have time for today but would you maybe wanna start with why you tried to take me down with my own furniture?”

“Ah, yeah,” Tooru takes a sip of his hot chocolate before answering. “When I saw your… arm, I went somewhere else.”

“Somewhere else?”

“My mind, I just; sometimes I slip away for a little bit and I come back angry. That’s the only way I know how to describe it. I’m sorry?” 

“S’cool,” Kuroo pats Tooru on the back with a sweet smile and Tooru can’t explain the strange warmth in his chest that follows. “So before your little temper tantrum, you asked about my kind.”

Tooru tenses. “So I did.”

“Well, I’m here. Open book, no-holds-barred and all that jazz. Ask away, soldier.”

“Why aren’t you trying to kill me?”

“That’s your first shot? Alright, then. Because I figured your day was already goin’ pretty shitty. Why make it worse?” Kuroo brings his mug up to his lips and leans back against the kitchen counter.

“Very funny,” Tooru replies, rolling his eyes and setting his drink down. He forms a ‘v’ with his hands under his chin, cocking his head to the side cutely. “Are you sure it wasn’t because I was just so handsome you had to spare me?”

“Oh, absolutely. You look especially fantastic when spewing vulgarities and spitting in my direction.”

“I… did that?” 

“Yes, right before you charged me and I had to knock you out.”

“‘Had to.’” Tooru frames his words in air quotations. 

“Yes, princess, had to. You’re nice and quiet right now but you can get mighty rowdy when you want to. Did I not mention that we weren’t alone?” 

“Princess?” Tooru shakes his head, scowling. “A-anyways, you did but I didn’t-”

Kuroo cuts him off, “notice because you’d already locked onto me? Yeah, I know. They must be lowering standards for enlisting these days.” 

“Hey! You ass, you were the only one I saw,” Tooru grumbles.

“‘Saw’ being the key word. I get it, you were on edge. You hadn’t slept in god knows how long. Two or three of those freshies behind you were bleeding and bruised and you felt you owed it to all of them to sacrifice yourself.”

Tooru doesn’t answer, gritting his teeth. Kuroo continues. “You wanted to be the hero, selfless and saintly and completely stupid. Whatever happened to strategy, Lieutenant? You seem like the brainy type, so why dive in without knowing the water’s depth, huh?” 

“Does anyone ever really know how they’re going to react when they might be facing death?” Tooru bites back. “Why bother insulting me? Acting like you know anything about anything…”

“I was a soldier too, you know.”

Tooru’s head snaps up to meet Kuroo’s eyes, eyebrows furrowing in confusion. “You... were a soldier? How? If you’re, you know, one of them.” 

“I wasn’t always like this,” he answers smoothly, brushing back his unruly fringe only to have it fall right back into his eyes. “Come on, I need to check your head. There’ll be plenty of time to talk later.” 

 

-

 

Tooru sits on the floor in front of the bed cross-legged with his hands folded in his lap listening to Kuroo hum quietly to himself as he pokes and prods at Tooru’s wound. It’s been so long since he’s had such a gentle touch and his eyes close of their own accord, totally and completely swept up in the feel of Kuroo’s fingers on his scalp. He can tell that Kuroo has drifted away from the cut and it’s hard to tell when cleaning and redressing his wound had become somewhat of a scalp massage. Kuroo drags the tips of his fingers all the way from the hairline above his neck to his crown, rubs small circles up behind his ears and along his hairline. Tooru takes a deep breath and leans into the hands behind him, content to stay for awhile. 

In a way it’s sad, because he knows he shouldn’t be so unguarded with a stranger, especially not one that has proven to be dangerous and has some mysterious connection to everything he has hated and opposed for the past eight years. And yet, he pushes back towards Kuroo, laying his head in his lap and sighing. He can hear Kuroo huff in amusement but refuses to open his eyes, scared of whatever expression he might find. If Tooru can just hold onto this moment for a little longer, everything will be fine. Maybe that’s why he’s been so accepting of all this, because it’s a break. Or perhaps it’s because it feels like something that could’ve happened before and he misses normalcy so much he’s willing to forget common sense.

Tooru thinks about his first kiss. Hajime and he had both been fifteen. Nervous about their lack of romantic experience, they’d decided to practice once with each other. Only once, though. He remembers Hajime squeezing his eyes shut and scrunching his nose, bracing himself like Tooru was going to deck him or something and he can’t help the fond smile that follows the memory.

He opens his eyes to Kuroo hovering over him, still playing with the hair curling around his ears. They are nose-to-nose and Tooru can feel his heartbeat speeding up. 

“Hey.” Kuroo’s bangs tickle Tooru’s cheek and he scrunches his nose. 

“Hey,” Tooru echoes. 

“Your hair is really soft,” Kuroo says, taking a lock in his fingers. His other hand moves down from where it was massaging just above Tooru’s neck and gently traces along Tooru’s jawline, fingertips dancing along his cheeks. “So is your skin.” 

Tooru parts his lips, lets his eyes slide shut. He can feel warm breath fan his face and with that Kuroo is pushing him away. “Not yet,” he mutters, moving to stand up.

Tooru is left dazed and a bit embarrassed. He thought for sure he was going to be kissed and he wouldn’t have pulled back, not immediately at least. Instead, he’s alone in Kuroo’s room fighting his uneven breathing with a hand over his heart to feel that steady pounding.

He wanders after Kuroo, down the hall to the living room where the aforementioned is now lounging on the couch, remote in hand flicking through the channels on a tiny TV across the room. Most stations don’t broadcast anymore, all that is aired regularly are emergency news programs and government announcements, which is why Tooru raises an eyebrow at Kuroo’s rapidfire channel switching. There’s nothing on, nothing worth watching anyways. 

“What are you doing?” Tooru asks.

“Huh?” Kuroo turns, feigning surprise at Tooru’s presence. “I dunno, actually. Wanna watch a movie?”

The two spend the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon rifling through Kuroo’s DVD collection and vegging out. Kuroo complains that Tooru has terrible taste but lets him play one sappy romance after another. Tooru points out that if Kuroo thinks they’re so bad, why bother owning them? Kuroo shuts up at this, his cheeks coloring as he insists they were his old roommate’s. They start on opposite ends of the couch but with each film, they inch closer together until Kuroo has his arm around Tooru and Tooru’s face is smushed comfortably into the other man’s shoulder. 

“Hey,” Kuroo says, pausing the movie, “I have some errands to run after this one’s over. Wanna come with? Or shall the princess remain locked up in his tower?”

Tooru sits up and punches him in the shoulder. “You say errands like you have to run to the grocery store. Where are we going?”

“To visit a friend. Don’t worry, I think you’ll like him. Though you might not like his hair.” 

**Author's Note:**

> i kinda wrote this more for me bc i can't stop thinking about it but i hope someone else can enjoy it too :----)  
> find me on twitter, let's be friends! @cryme2themoon


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